PARTY LINES: Speaker concerned over potential indictments

House Speaker Robert DeLeo told WCVB ABC 5 this past week he’s concerned that if any legislators are indicted as the result of an investigation into alleged corruption within the Probation Department, it would case a negative cloud over Beacon Hill.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo told WCVB ABC 5 this past week he’s concerned that if any legislators are indicted as the result of an investigation into alleged corruption within the Probation Department, it would case a negative cloud over Beacon Hill.

DeLeo and several other legislators, including state Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, were mentioned frequently last year in an independent counsel’s investigation into alleged patronage.

“I’m not personally worried in terms of myself,” DeLeo, D-Winthrop, told reporters. “But I am worried in the sense that it does cast a pall over everything that we do in state government. Many times you feel sometimes you try to take a step forward and this takes you a little ... step back and once again you have to move forward to show what the House of Representatives is and it consists of people who are very honest and good people who care about their constituents.”

Local schools may get funding boost

The city’s public schools are in line for a potential $2 million funding increase in Gov. Deval Patrick’s budget proposal, while unrestricted local aid coming into the city would be level funded.

Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. said the news is good for the schools, but he warned the picture for the general city government may not be as rosy.

“Level funding is what it sounds like, but our costs go up each year, so it’s like taking a cut,” he said.

While it’s still very early in the budget process, Hoye warned that no options, including layoffs, have been ruled out yet.

“We’re already bare bones as it is,” he said. “The prospect of layoffs would be daunting for Taunton. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

Under Patrick’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal, which was introduced last week, Taunton schools would see $47.5 million in education aid from the state, and increase of more than $2 million from the fiscal 2012 budget. Taunton’s unrestricted local aid would remain at $6.5 million.